Barely a month removed from their best postseason run in a generation, the Nuggets look around to see their rivals re-arming.

The Spurs just added Richard Jefferson and DeJuan Blair and will probably get Bruce Bowen back. The Blazers are under the salary cap and are pursuing Hedo Turkoglu and Andre Miller.

On the bright side, the Lakers are still the same team that knocked Denver out of the playoffs.

So, what do the Nuggets do to keep up?

That’s the $9.8 million question. Or, given the hated luxury tax, the $19.6 million question.

For the last year, the Nuggets have been on a serious cost-cutting campaign, slicing more than $20 million from the payroll to get below the luxury-tax threshold. Surprisingly, this made them more competitive, not less. But by taking them to the NBA’s final four, it also raised the pressure to get over the top.

The reason this is a $9.8 million question is that’s the amount of the net trade exception the Nuggets carried out of their various salary dumps of the past year. It is good until Nov. 3. Between now and then, the Nuggets can take back up to $9.8 million more in salary than they trade away, usually a no-no for teams over the salary cap.

In other words, they can’t wait and see how next season goes. By roughly the opener, they must decide whether to raise, or check.

Adding to the pressure is the fact Chauncey Billups turns 33 in September. If the Nuggets want to go for a championship with Denver’s prodigal son running the show, now is the time.

This is not to demean the Nuggets’ trading into the first round of the draft last week to grab point guard Ty Lawson. Lawson is a nice investment in the future. But that move also confirmed the Nuggets’ continuing cost-consciousness. Lawson’s first-year salary is $1.2 million. By selling their second-round pick to Houston for $2.25 million, the Nuggets actually made a profit on the draft.

Historically, teams that come close to an NBA championship make offseason moves to match up with the teams that beat them. So, for example, the Cavaliers just acquired Shaq- uille O’Neal to match up with Dwight Howard after the Magic ousted them from the Eastern Conference finals.

If the Nuggets want to match up better with the Lakers, they need to get bigger. To accomplish this, they could offer to make sign-and-trade deals with teams trying to get way below the salary cap a year from now for the summer of LeBron (and Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh).

They could offer Steven Hunter’s expiring contract to the Pistons for Rasheed Wallace, whom the Pistons probably aren’t bringing back anyway.

They could make sign-and- trade offers for restricted free agents on teams with cap issues. Forward David Lee of the Knicks and center Marcin Gortat of the Magic come to mind.

Given Nuggets coach George Karl’s fondness for big men who can spread the floor, Denver could find out whether Channing Frye has fallen so far out of favor in Portland that the Blazers would sign and trade him.

The problem is that any of these moves would cost twice as much as the player’s new contract because the Nuggets are inevitably going back over the tax threshold. Owing to the general state of the economy, the cap and luxury-tax numbers (approximately $58 million and $71 million, respectively) are expected to be the same or slightly lower next season.

The Nuggets already have $71 million committed to 10 players, one of whom, Antonio McDyess, will play for somebody else again. If they intend to bring back free agents Chris Andersen and Dahntay Jones, as they say they do, they will need most or all of their mid- level salary cap exception, which will take them close to $77 million. That doesn’t include Linas Kleiza’s qualifying offer or several minimum salaries to fill out the roster.

So billionaire E. Stanley Kroenke is looking at a minimum luxury-tax bill in the $5 million to $6 million range without roster improvements, other than Lawson. Any further upgrade will cost twice its face value because of the dollar-for-dollar luxury tax.

Kroenke keeps his own counsel, but having had such good results with cost-cutting lately, a new spending spree probably isn’t the way to bet.

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